Character

In many ways Mekkatorque and Thermaplugg are defined by their relationship with each other. It’s difficult to talk about Thermaplugg without talking about Mekkatorque. They have a very clear cut and close relationship as antagonists. Gelbin is the hero and Sicco is the villain.

There have been some hints recently that Thermaplugg is attempting to clean up Gnomeregan and cure the leprosy himself. I think that giving Thermaplugg more depth and development is great. Thermaplugg’s actions inform us, as players, first hand of the notorious flaws of the gnomish race, in the same way that that Mekkatorque shows us their greatest strengths. Seeing these two characters in active conflict is exponentially more effective at defining ‘gnome-ness’ than any out of character write up could ever be.

In order for this style of storytelling to work we need both sides to be developed. Both characters to be interesting, engaging and little bit relatable. Thermaplugg being undeveloped undermines Mekkatorque’s development. Warcraft primarily tells it’s story though villains. We spend as much, if not more, time interacting with enemies than we do allied heroes. Confronting evil is how our characters interact with the world and it is how we as players learn to understand life on Azeroth.

I have joked that I would like to see Sicco get redeemed, saved, or even, turn out to have been the good guy all along. It would be fun for me, but it would be bad for gnomes in general. We need him to show us what the moral, ideological, and conceptual failings of gnomes. I feel like currently Thermaplugg is perceived by a lot of people as Stupid Evil. I hope that these new lore hints are leading to something that put an end to that perception.

Death Knight – The glowing blue eyes
are cool. but the custom faces and hair colors are lackluster.

What could they use? Half skull! like in the movie “War of the Colossal Beast (1958)” More skeletal features, maybe pustules like the super zombies.

Druid – Druids and character customization are not friendly. Any option you give to the base model you have to give to the animal forms. For some reason Animal forms are treated like individual creatures rather than as races, so it’s a lot more work to customize them.

Malfurion gives us a lot to work with. Antlers are obvious, but we have plenty of transmogs to handle those.

Druids could ‘grow'(?) feathers and clawed hands and feet, maybe a beak if you like that.

Mage – Mages are mostly normal people. What could a mages have? Probably something floating around them, like ion stones.

Monk – I’m good with Monks because they already have full sets of custom animations that no one gets. That’s great! New Run/Walk/Stand animations might work to set them more apart, but making those look different AND natural could be a big challenge.

Paladin – I would like the see the Draenei share their forehead glow rune with other paladins. Make it a quest to go get blessed by a Naaru and it could change depending on which one you visit.

Priest – Thematically Priests and Paladins have been similar for a long time.

Priests could glow with an Aura that changes color based on race and spec, but I also want to stay away from too many particle effects.

Shaman and Warlock – For me these too classes have the problem of overlapping with the new Demon Hunters.

I would give shamans tattoos. It would not be hard to make the tattoos look very different from the demon hunter ones. A different set of colors alone would accomplish that.

Warlocks, all I can think of is horns and wings.

Hunter, Rogue, and Warrior – Hunter along with Rogue and Warrior are kind of generic. Best I could think of was allowing rogues to scale down to be ~6 in. shorter, Warriors to scale up to be ~6 in. taller.

For Hunters… scars? There is no reason to give hunters scars over the other two. My warrior needs badass scars on his face like Varian, but I can’t imagine what to give hunters, without going back to the animal features available to Druids above.